water change and now looks like everything is Dying

[SaltyFlip]

hopefully she saves her tank....wait what am I talking about of course she'll save her tank. Oh btw she better have alot of buckets for all her water. I actually had to edit my previous post because I would've thought she had to get her water ready and it takes over night and at best a whole day. Keep us posted jaynie

 

[Jaynie1028]

Ok well its 3am and I just finished doing my water change. Im starting to think maybe the tank was in shock before I dropped the temp in my tank last night by mistake. I forgot I bout pulsing Xenias a few weeks ago and they were doing great in my tank for a few weeks and then last week I noticed they werent doing to well. I got two BIG bunches and tonight when I was cleaning out my tank I noticed they were all over the tank under everything just broken up and decayed.
I did a 12 gallon water change and that was More then half the tank. My ammonia was GREEN on the chart and after my change the ammonia is still GREEN. SO I guess I have to do another water change again tomorrow when I get home for work. I am making 14 gallons of water right now so they are ready to go for tomorrow night.
Just one question how do I get this down??? Im going to the store tomorrow to get carbon. I was informed that chemi pour isnt carbon tonight. I thought it was and I have been using just that for over 5 months Maybe this is my problem.
SO, so far I have lost 2 HUGE pieces of pulsing xenias, one banded coral shrimp and a lawnmower blenny Loved that guy so much. Cant find the shrimp though. Piece of xenia every where. Lost my anemonie. What is left in the tank is a Very small Tang, one clown, watchman, bicolor blenny, one damsel,GBTA not looking to good now, yellow headed goby and one hawk fish. Corals In the tank are one BIG mushroom, Toadstool leather, green star polyps, Gloves, pip Organ, a few riccordia, small mushrooms some zoas, and a plate that LOOKS so Bad.
Should I put all these corals into my other tank where all my reading are perfect?????

Thank you everyone

 

[jejton]

I use hydrocarbon and change weekly.

Im assuming thats a brand name, right? because hydrocarbons is petroleum products - gas, oil.

 

[jejton]

Jaynie - I'm sorry to hear about your losses but dont be discouraged, as others have aready said, we ll go through them. Dont take this the wrong way, but from reading your last couple of posts ( but even when I first read you had an anemone and now reading you had 2) it seems that you were way overstocked for a 29 gallon tank and a disaster was just waiting to happen. As for your ammonia, if you're going to the store buy one of those ammonia absorbing pads ( the ones I have are brown and look like poly-filters ). They will give you some more leeway regarding the ammonia so you dont have to change so much water every day until your tank is stable again.

 

[Jaynie1028]

Ok, well a little update. Today the tank still looks cloudy and the ammonia is still off the chart. So tonight when I get home I am taking out ALL of the water and replacing it with new water. I have lost the plate at this time and also my bicolor blenny is now gone. I have made 20 more gallons of water and still making more should be ready to go tonight. Im going to take out all the corals that are left in the tank along with the fish and put them in a bucket and empty the whole tank. I hope by starting over with all new water the ammonia will be gone. we will see what happens.

 

[prattreef]

I'd be running carbon very aggressively to clean up decaying waste and the very potent Xenia toxins that were released when your colony crashed.

 

[Jaynie1028]

you would run carbon and chemi pour together??? Aquahut said that carbon will not do anything at this time if I am running the chemi pure. They said to just run that. Its much better then carbon. Would you add both????

 

[prattreef]

No chemi pure is fine. But I think it is more cost effective to run carbon and change it every few days in this type of emergency situation.

 

[Jaynie1028]

ok great. thanks. I will get that tonight. I am also going to buy the diatom filter to hook up and use as well.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

As warned earlier the die off seems to have severed, I think you should ask someone to hold your live stock that are still living while you start over with the DT or get large bucket, put new water in them and acclimate your LS in it. If you take the latter route, make sure you prepare more water to change daily until the DT is ready. Even taking the latter route, I am sure you will have less causaulties if you miss water change a day or so. If you do the acclimation right, there should not be any death. When you see all your fish mostly lying on the bottom, it's a big indication that they are suffering from high ammonia. However, if you miss a water change in your current DT, I am sure you will kill more LS.

The diatom filter is for polishing water and clean out dirts of very small size but it won't help much when they declayed into chemicals already. Save the money and restart the tank is much safer.

 

[Jaynie1028]

After the water change tonight Im going to put the livestock back into the tank. I will make sure to soak the fish for an hour or so before I drop them into the tank. Im sure they will be in the bucket for a good 2 or 3 hours while I am doing the fish tank. At this point I have a clownfish, two gobys,one damsel, and a small tang left.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

usually amonnia is lethal when they are around .75 and when it gets to like 1 most of your fish will die in an hour or so. Since you cannot get an accurate reading, I am est. your level by your description. One or two fish die over a period of 1 day seems to suggest you are having some what .5 to .75 range and contninue to increase. Changing your water with your intended amount lower it back by 1/3 thus from .75 back to .5 or .5 to .37 but what good is that when there are more die off happening????? It will get back to lethal level by tomorrow. If you have a large bucket like 24G, fill it with clean water should last 2 3 days before your fish will foul the water to dangerous levels.

 

[Jaynie1028]

so if I change all the water tonight your saying within 2 or 3 days it will be back to .75 again and be back to where I am now? So how do I get rid of ammonia all the way then? I have to get this ammonia out of the tank asap. 100% water change should do the trick right??? Clean out the sump, the bio balls, and the skimmer.

 

[SaltyFlip]

Just a thought, but if she clean out and about everything and change 100% of the water wouldn't that kill all the beneficial bacteria that was settled in there...then doesn't that mean she might have to re-cycle her tank again? Isn't there another way to go about this without her having to do all those things?

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Just a thought, but if she clean out and about everything and change 100% of the water wouldn't that kill all the beneficial bacteria that was settled in there...then doesn't that mean she might have to re-cycle her tank again? Isn't there another way to go about this without her having to do all those things?

Well I am not suggesting her to change water in the DT and leave the fish in the DT. I am suggesting her to put the fish in empty bucket filled with new clean water with 0 ammonia.

I am also suggesting her to restart the DT. That is, recycle the whole thing.

Yes a 100% water change will kill a lot of the bacteria but not all. The bacteria surviving will be able to recycle the tank very quickly-much faster than a new tank with dry rocks and such to start with. If she change let say 90 percent of the water in the DT, I thing her cycle will finish in 5 days to a week. Just continue monitor ammonia twice a day and report us the results. We can chart out the cycle progress.

For your reference, sometimes when I break down tanks for clients one or two of the buckets of coral attached rocks may suddenly die and ammonia spike to high heaven due to forgetting to provide water movement. But then in two days, the ammonia is back to zero. Sometimes, ammonia can be seen at ~1 PPM at noon and at night the level will drop back to .5 at night once you put back the powerhead. Usually, it sticks around at .25 for a while before going undetectable.

 

[dickenscd]

Jaynie,

I was not exactly aware what you have been through in the past 2 days until reading this thread.

I understand that you are anxiously to do anything to recover the tank so that you can put couple survived fish and corals back to the tank, but I would suggest you not to do so.

With the number of corals and fish died in a small tank, the whole tank, including the protein skimmer and live rocks are fouled, and it takes a while, possibly couple weeks back to normal. I would suggest you to keep the survived fish and corals in a separate tank or bucket or find if anyone can help you hold them for a month. Empty and clean entire tank and equipments, let it cycle for couple weeks before you put any live stocks back to the tank.

I can lend you a Phosban reactor (including pump) and give you some carbon if you want to try it, but I don?t think it is necessary. I just made 100G RODI water today; you may take it if you need it.

If nobody can help you keep the fish, I can possibly buy 2 gobies from you at the price which you have paid.

I can hold the RBTA which you won last Sunday through the donation to MR for couple weeks, but you should reconsider whether you need it or not. RBTA can grow big in a 29G tank. Couple people contacted me for the RBTA after they lost the bid, and you can easily resell it and get your money back.

Please stop by my office or call me if you need any other help. I have lots of Xenia and extra corals; I will give you some once your tank is recovered.

James

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

James is alway mega kind and generous-just like me :splitspin

Jaynie,

I was not exactly aware what you have been through in the past 2 days until reading this thread.

I understand that you are anxiously to do anything to recover the tank so that you can put couple survived fish and corals back to the tank, but I would suggest you not to do so.

With the number of corals and fish died in a small tank, the whole tank, including the protein skimmer and live rocks are fouled, and it takes a while, possibly couple weeks back to normal. I would suggest you to keep the survived fish and corals in a separate tank or bucket or find if anyone can help you hold them for a month. Empty and clean entire tank and equipments, let it cycle for couple weeks before you put any live stocks back to the tank.

I can lend you a Phosban reactor (including pump) and give you some carbon if you want to try it, but I don?t think it is necessary. I just made 100G RODI water today; you may take it if you need it.

If nobody can help you keep the fish, I can possibly buy 2 gobies from you at the price which you have paid.

I can hold the RBTA which you won last Sunday through the donation to MR for couple weeks, but you should reconsider whether you need it or not. RBTA can grow big in a 29G tank. Couple people contacted me for the RBTA after they lost the bid, and you can easily resell it and get your money back.

Please stop by my office or call me if you need any other help. I have lots of Xenia and extra corals; I will give you some once your tank is recovered.

James

 

[Jaynie1028]

Thank you everyone for helping me through this nightmare in my life. After working on my tank tonight for 7 hours with another MR memeber that was so kind to spend 7 hours here helping me and bringing his own stuff to clear up my water. I went from a 3 reading down to a 1 to .5 reading on the ammonia and 0 on everything else. So I guess its going to just take time for the ammonia to come down on its own at this point. Took out almost all the water out of the tank except about 3 gallons. Changed all filter pads put live rock back into tank and now just waiting for everything to settle down. Took readings again about 20 mins ago and ammonia was at 1.

So Question is do I do another water change like everyday for the next few days or do I just let it go through a cycle for the week?

Also Thanks so much John (Mr.Softy) for coming tonight and spending 7 hours here helping me. I really appreciate everything.

Thanks again EVERYONE.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

If you have all the live stock removed from the DT, you should just let the tank cycle itself. Provide lots of flow(hence oxygen) to promote bacteial growth.

 

[Mr. Softy]

Thank you everyone for helping me through this nightmare in my life. After working on my tank tonight for 7 hours with another MR memeber that was so kind to spend 7 hours here helping me and bringing his own stuff to clear up my water. I went from a 3 reading down to a 1 to .5 reading on the ammonia and 0 on everything else. So I guess its going to just take time for the ammonia to come down on its own at this point. Took out almost all the water out of the tank except about 3 gallons. Changed all filter pads put live rock back into tank and now just waiting for everything to settle down. Took readings again about 20 mins ago and ammonia was at 1.

So Question is do I do another water change like everyday for the next few days or do I just let it go through a cycle for the week?

Also Thanks so much John (Mr.Softy) for coming tonight and spending 7 hours here helping me. I really appreciate everything.

Thanks again EVERYONE.

No thanks necessary. Maybe change a bucket of water a day till i see you again on Sunday. Also check the PH of the new water that you have in the buckets before you do the change. If its low, add a little buffer to the bucket and make sure its disolved before add it to you tank. If you have the time to come over to my house before Sunday, i can give you some filter pad material. Sorry, i forgot to give it to you last night. Just wish that there was some way to get an appropriate protein skimmer on that system. It would make a huge difference. Try to be patient, its like starting over again. BTW, that is the first time that i have given CPR to a fish using a diatom filter. Its ALIIIIVE!!!!:bagfish: